Srinagar, June 9 (IANS) Hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits trekked to north Kashmir's Khirbhawani temple Thursday to pray at the famous Hindu shrine in the Muslim-majority valley where the locals welcomed pilgrims with pots of milk.

The festival at the Khirbhawani temple is held every year after nightlong prayers by the devotees invoking the blessings of Hindu goddess Ragnya, the patron deity of the local Pandits.

Muslims in north Kashmir Tullamulla village, 27 km from state capital Srinagar, serve milk in earthen pots to the devotees, keeping alive the centuries-old tradition of Hindu-Muslim amity in Kashmir Valley.

"Many things might have changed, but the love, affection and respect we have for our Pandit brothers will never change", Abdul Majid, 56, a resident of Tullamulla village in Ganderbal district, told IANS.

Pilgrims started reaching the temple Wednesday evening and the rush continued Thursday as well.

Phoola Raina, 40, came here from Udhampur district in the Jammu region where her family migrated after the separatist violence started here in 1990s. Since then, she has been coming regularly every year to keep up the family tradition.

Phoola, however, is not sure whether or not the time has come for the final return of her family to the valley.

"I cannot say this with surety. We belong to the south Kashmir Anantnag district, but had to migrate with other families as violence started here in 1990s. On a personal level, our relations with the local Muslims continue to be cordial, but whether we should return back to the valley or not is a matter I am not sure about", Phoola said as she dropped flowers in the temple spring.

The spring is traditionally believed to reflect the future of the valley through the changing colours of its water.

"In 1990, the water of the spring had turned red. That foretold violence and bloodshed. Today, the colour of the spring water is milky. This means there would be peace and prosperity in the valley during the coming days", said Sushil Koul, 42, who continues to live at the Habba Kadal locality of summer capital Srinagar despite thousands of his neighbours choosing to migrate out of the area at the peak of the insurgency and bloodshed in the state in the nineties.

"Today is an auspicious day. The milky colour of the spring water at the temple is a welcome sign. This indicates peace and prosperity for the people of Kashmir in the days to come", Koul told IANS.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah visited the shrine early Thursday and oversaw the arrangements.

Adequate security has been deployed on the way to Khirbhawani temple from Srinagar. Fire services, health department and local civic authorities have made adequate arrangements to facilitate the devotees.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today said while efforts were on to bring migrant Kashmiri Pandits back to the Valley, it will only be possible when the community feels confident about their return.

â€œWe are making efforts for their return but they (Kashmiri Pandits) have to be prepared for it. They should feel assured and confident about their return,â€ Omar told reporters after paying obesiance at the Tulmulla shrine here, 27 kms from Srinagar.

The Chief Minister said militancy in the state was on a decline.

â€œMilitancy is reduding ... panchayat polls have been conducted peacefully and all communities like Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs have participated. This should be a ray of hope for them (Pandits) to return,â€ he said.

Omar said he has directed the Inspector general of CID to expedite the verification of Kashmiri Pandit youth, who have been employed under Prime Ministerâ€™s job plan in Kashmir Valley recently.

â€œI have directed the IG (CID) to fast track the clearance for them,â€ he said when asked about why wages were not being paid to the new recruits even after five months of joining the service.

Responding to another question, Omar said some influential persons and religious leaders were against the passage of â€˜Protection of Temples and Hindu Shrines Billâ€™ in the state Assembly.

â€œWhen we were in opposition, National Conference had brought this bill. Unfortunately, some important leaders from (Hindu) community have expressed concerns about it. They said passage of the bill can create a situation like 2008 in the state,â€ Omar said, adding, these leaders had called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to exert pressure against the passage of the bill.

Asked about the empowerment of panchayats in the state, Omar said the government was already working on it and if need be an ordinance will be issued to this effect.

â€œWe are already working on it. If need be, we will not wait for the Assembly session (for bringing in necessary amendments). We will issue an ordnance instead, in order to transfer the powers to Panchayats,â€ he said.

Omar said the state chief secretary Madhav Lal has chaired several meetings in this regard.

Srinagar, Jun 4 (PTI) The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) today said Kashmiri Pandits were inalienable part of the society in the Valley and appealed them to participate in the Kheer Bhawani festival next week in numbers to restore the links with their motherland. "Muslims in Kashmir have always considered Pandits as inalienable part of the society and every sensible person in Kashmir wants them to return to their homes," JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik said in a statement. He appealed the Kashmiri Pandits living in other parts of the country to visit the Kheer Bhawani festival on June 8 to "restore their old links." Malik said Kashmiri Muslims were not communal as was being projected by certain quarters. "We have not given up on our communal harmony even when some communal elements ensured economic blockade of Kashmir in 2008. We still gave food and shelter to Amarnath yatries in our homes," he said.

ho the grate irony of it all the KP's were killed raped and butchered by the same fucking JKLF people and now all of a sudden they are having second thaoughts and call the KP's back

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It was a religious move to threaten them and send them out of Kashmir and it is a political move now to act as if they love them and to show that their freedom struggle is not all about Islamic dominance and Hindu hateing.

It was a religious move to threaten them and send them out of Kashmir and it is a political move now to act as if they love them and to show that their freedom struggle is not all about Islamic dominance and Hindu hateing.

Tullmulla (Ganderbal), June 9: Noted oncologist and the spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party Dr Sameer Kaul on Thursday urged Kashmir Pandits not to encourage extremist thoughts.

â€œThe message is clear for my Pandit brethren that Muslims have taken two steps forward and we should reciprocate their gesture,â€ said Dr Kaul while addressing the devotees on the occasion of Mela Khirbhawani here.
â€œMy passionate appeal to my community members is that no extremist thought should be encouraged at this juncture they should tread the middle path,â€ he said.

Dr Kaul thanked local Muslims for making the arrangements and taking care of devotees. â€œIt was wonderful example of our ethos of preserved culture. Even after almost 2-decades the mixed religion of Hindu- Muslim has survived. I saw clear example of it during Kheerbhawani mela.â€

â€œOur community should be thankful to Kashmiri Pandits, who stayed back in 1990, and the Muslims who protected our shrines and temples during all these years,â€ Dr Kaul said.

It was a religious move to threaten them and send them out of Kashmir and it is a political move now to act as if they love them and to show that their freedom struggle is not all about Islamic dominance and Hindu hateing.

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It was actually a political or a politico-religious move then and is a Kashmiri sub-nationalism move now. Its a fact that more Kashmiri muslims have been killed by militants than Kashmiri non-muslims in the past 20 years.

Like any extremismt or militant politico-religious movement, even those muslims that did'nt agree with their viewpoint were fair game.

The welcome point is that this is all changing, few years back Kheer Bhawani festival, but now thousands of Hindus are coming to their pilgrimage site. Hopefully this is only the beginning and the local muslims will also be able to show the true side of Islam and re-create the secular fabric of Kashmiri culture.

Reminds me that one of the reasons for decline in militancy lately (including brilliant work by our forces) is that the people were fed up with all the decade long violence and the militant lords in Pakistan, PoK sensed that the current method of bloody insurgency could soon turn the kashmiri muslims against them. Hence we see a toned down physical violence and mostly its only the security forces that get targeted by the militants now. As kashmiris have been politically very vocal lately, none of the sides could risk collateral damage in this tussle.

Apparently Kashmir Muslims will be a happy and welcoming so long as the Kashmiri Pundits merely come and go as pilgrims or tourists seeking a catchup with a nostalgic past,all the warmth disappears when ever talk veer around making actual efforts to allow the Kashmir pundits and their descendants to settle down in the valley,their homeland.....

Kashmiri pundits,fair and square,dont trust the Muslims of the valley to honor any proffered pledge to protect and not molest the Pundits in the future,such assurances,as the pundits have discovered to their utter misfortune,are as transient as a snowflake in Srinagar in high summer.The only assurance that will convince the pundits of their safety on return,is if their safety is guaranteed by the Indian constitution and the indian state.

The above condition will only be met if the article 370 is abrogated and the state of J&K is absorbed completely into the Indian federal administrative structure.So long as this move remains pending, any talk of assurance to pundits to their safety rings with hollow insincerity.

And the constitution already guarantees Indians to go to J&K whenever they want. And the article 370 as well allows the Pandits to buy land in Kashmir whenever they want. And finally let the Pandits and the people of J&K decide as a community what the final status solution would be within the ambit of the Indian constitution.

But ofcourse, the Pandits will have to feel secure first. And the local Kashmiris have to provide the assurance to make them feel confident. And this story looks to be positive change to me. In festivals like this when no one was coming to Kashmir, now you have thousands of Pandits turning up. The assurance of Kashmiriyat and reviving that broken bonds torn apart by militancy and violence will a much stronger guarantor of security than any constitutional change. And this means a two way street of Kashmiri muslims providing that assurance to the Pandits and the rest of India providing that assurance and acceptance to the people of J&K as well.

India and especially the Kashmiri pundits have had a taste what entails leaving Kashmir's fate to be decided by the people of the valley,do we still want tread that path.Whatever reasons prompted the Indian gov to never hold a plebiscite in the valley still hold true and that has ramification of the future of the pundits of the valley an their resettlement in the valley.....The Pundits dont so much require the assurance of the Muslims of the valley as much as the guarantees of an indian citizen as provided in the Indian constitution,which the Indian sate is duty bound to ensure it is extended and protected at all costs,Article 370 robs the Pundits of the beneficence of the Indian constitution and do not want to return to the haunted valley on the back of mere assurances of a people and its govt, who are a law unto themselves,thanks to the Article 370.